I happen to agree with SnowLeopard on this one. While I haven't seen all of the baboon exhbits on the planet, I have seen all of the major baboon exhibits in the USA -- and this is clearly the best of them! It's best because:
(a) It features Geladas! To my knowledge, these are the only geladas in the USA, and they are THE most attractive baboons -- now that mandrills are no longer classified as baboons.
(b) This is a great multi-species exhibit, which is rare for baboons. It includes quite different animals with the ibexes and hyraxes.
(c) It's a very realistic simulation of an African hillside.
(d) It includes both open air views and through-glass close-up viewing.
(e) It also has a great African marketplace dining area, where visitors can sit and eat, while watching the baboons.
Very good points Alan. Just a question, I thought I remembered hearing something about Virginia Zoo having gelada's? Or was it Chacma? I can't remember exactly but if they are chacma, than these are definitely the only ones in NA (Which would mean the new gelada's came from overseas!)
Very good points Alan. Just a question, I thought I remembered hearing something about Virginia Zoo having gelada's? Or was it Chacma? I can't remember exactly but if they are chacma, than these are definitely the only ones in NA (Which would mean the new gelada's came from overseas!)
I wrote "to my knowledge" the Bronx has the only USA geladas -- as I was writing strictly from memory. You are correct that Virginia HAD geladas when they opened their new African exhibit in 1999, but from their website it looks like now they have mandrills in their place.
I saw that too. When I was at these two zoos (in the past couple years), I have no memory of seeing either of these single animals. My experience is that, when a zoo has a single animal of a species like this, it usually means they own one of the animals, but it's been loaned out to where it can enjoy socialization with its own kind -- probably to the Bronx.
San Diego used to exhibit two females in the corn-crib style wire cages half-way down Bear Canyon (or whatever they call it now). So they may still have one off-exhibit in their Primate Propagation Center
The problem is that the only things that are definitely baboons (scientifically speaking) are Papio species - Hamadryas, Yellow etc - because that's what the name 'baboon' really refers to. Whether Mandrillus (Mandrill/Drill) or Theropithecus (Gelada) are closely related enough to Papio to be called baboons is a matter of opinion (which can change rapidly with a single new study), hence the varying statements!
Reduakari's evidence would (I am assuming, not having seen it!) suggest that Mandrillus shares a more recent common ancestor with Papio than Theropithecus does, so if either of them are baboons, it's Mandrillus, while Theropithecus clusters with the mangabeys. Other opinions differ! And if it were found later that (say) the green monkeys (Chlorocebus) fitted onto the tree between Mandrillus and Papio, then we'd have to choose whether to stop calling Mandrills baboons, or to call Grivets and Vervets baboons as well. That's systematics, for you. Common names do not usually work very scientifically above genus level.
But personally, and for the time being - not Papio, not a baboon.
Let's remember that taxonomy is a human construct not a natural fact. And that taxonomists disagree about the classification of everything.
When DNA came into the field, it challenged old principles of taxonomy and turned everything on its head. The field has not yet recovered or reached agreement on how to decide "who is related to whom."
I have little doubt that one could produce expert papers asserting that this or that is a baboon or is in no way a baboon.
So I guess Cat-man can "know" what he knows and others can "know" what they know. It has nothing to do with any objective TRUTH.
There is an objective truth (in that there will be, somewhere, a right answer as to which are more closely related) but we stand a whelk's chance in a supernova of getting the full truth. All we can hope to keep making our 'best guesses' better - that's what all science is about, really.
I agree that as humans we create working truths. But is a gelada really a baboon or not? What does that even mean? Except that a majority of taxonomists have concluded one way or the other? And why is their conclusion truth? Informed opinion ...sure. Helpful in doing further research ...sure. But truth? Is Nature, Life, evolution so Cartesian? I don't think so. And I think we muddle things when we believe that our conclusions are the same as the universe. We create meaning, we affect our experiments. We agree to agree. That's the beauty of humans! But we confuse that with the Truth at our own peril. What Truth of the past didn't later get rejected as a mistake, only to be wiped out by the new Truth? So, what then is the truth?
